Ukraine/ 4.2 Specific policy issues and recent debates

4.2.3 Cultural/creative industries: policies and programmes

There is no clear definition of the cultural industries in Ukraine. The first mention of "cultural industries" appeared in the Law of Ukraine on the Conceptual Framework of the Public Cultural Policy of Ukraine (2005). The Law on Culture, which had been under discussion for 7 years and was adopted by the Parliament in December 2010 (signed by the President in January, 2011), has no mention of "cultural industries". The Law offers the following formulation: "cultural wealth is goods and services produced in the course of activities in the sphere of culture to satisfy cultural needs of citizens (books, audio and visual products (music recordings), works of art and documents on new information-carrying media, crafts, theatre and circus performances, concerts, cultural and educational services, etc.)".

Creative and cultural industries are mentioned in the Long-term Development Strategy of Ukrainian Culture:

support of innovations, new knowledge and skills, creative industries matching challenges of the 21st century; and

state policy for creating national cultural product envisages the establishment of efficient professional inter-sectoral interaction on all levels for the development of modern cultural industries to promote common values, and establish new partnerships.

In 2017, within the project “Bridges for civic activity” funded by the EU, there were 3 forums of the creative industries, Creative industries for local development, Creative industries for active life, and Creative industries: Ukraine for the world. The forums were organized by the Charitable Ukrainian Foundation “Pomogaem” (city of Dnipro, http://uacharity.com/), established in 2009 by volunteers to resolve health, social, economic and cultural problems of modern Ukrainian society. The Foundation acts in partnership with regional and national authorities (Ministry of Culture, Oblast State Administration), professional associations (Ukrainian Library Association), as well as with civil society organizations (Centre for Cultural Management (Lviv), Kultura Medialna (Dnipro).

At the same time, the Ministry of Culture organized two forums on cultural and creative industries in Kyiv in 2017. The forums have provided direction indicators for CCI programme development. The Ministry of Culture jointly with Verkhovna Rada Committee on Culture and Religions prepared amendments to the Law on Culture with a definition of the term “cultural and creative industries”.

The establishment of the Ukrainian Book Institute in 2017 and the adoption of the Law On Ukrainian Cultural Endowment are creating favourable conditions for cultural industries development in Ukraine.

Ukrainian cinematography has been steadily developing, receiving state support in 2016-2017 as a separate budget programme, along with a favourable legislative environment and tax exemption policy. The quality of domestic productions has earned recognition in the form of multiple prestigious international prizes including Cannes Film Festival, Berlin International Film Festival and Venice International Film Festival. The film industry is already a significant contributor to the national economy; 15 600 people work in the film industry and the contribution of these activities to GDP is UAH 1.1 billion.

In 2015 12.95% of all nationally distributed films were of domestic origin, including co-productions. 263 films were distributed nation-wide across Ukraine, of which 224 were foreign, six were co-productions, and 23 were domestically produced. The overwhelming majority of distributed films were foreign: 85.2%.

According to the Ukrainian State Film Agency (USFA), since 2014, 42 domestic films, including 7 fiction films, 6 feature shorts, 8 animation films 21 documentaries were produced. The Ukrainian State Film Agency rejected or abolished state registration of 230 films (TV series) produced by the Russian Federation on the basis of the Order of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine of 30.12.2016, #275 “On Addition (Renovation) of the List of Persons Creating Danger to National Security following the Call of the State Security Service of Ukraine”. The Expert Commission on distribution and demonstration at the USFA analysed 937 films and TV series, and declined 483 films and TV series from those analysed, almost all produced in the Russian Federation, basing this decision on the above mentioned Order of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine.

As Philip Ilyenko, head of the State Film Agency, stated, more than 630 films and TV series produced in the Russian Federation are prohibited for demonstration in Ukraine by November 2017; it defends the Ukrainian information space and stimulates the production of Ukrainian content (https://www.facenews.ua/news/2017/385010/).

Table 1: State Budget expenses for film production and distribution, in million UAH, 2010-2018

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

project

Budget expenses

30.0

110.7

145.9

146.3

74.1

136.7

255.8

514.5

518.2

Source: State Treasury of Ukraine, 2015, Parliament Committee on Culture and Religions, 2017.

According to the data of the Book Chamber of Ukraine, the number of books (number of titles) in the Ukrainian language increased by 5.38% in 2017 (11 months) compared with 2016; as for Russian language books, their number of titles decreased by 2.7%.

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